jennifer patel

Originally written 5/9/16 Whenever I go to 24 Hour Fitness, I always wash my hands before I leave because 24 is disgusting. Every time I walk into the women's locker room, there is a favorable chance that I will walk in on a middle-aged woman, buck naked walking around. Really? Yes. Just walking around. And it's a different woman every time. It happens 9 out of 10 times. I used to just try and avert my eyes, but now that I am used to it, I get kind of annoyed. Where are you going?! Nowhere. Just walking around aimlessly. There is an area off the main entrance...go be naked there, please. Just like the annoyance of expecting to see a naked woman in the locker room, I have come to expect unfavorable news and outcomes in our IVF journey. We are at our two year anniversary with our doctor and the only thing our time and money has accomplished is funding his child's future college tuition. We are on the fail train, hard. When I went in for our fourth embryo transfer this ...

Originally written 1/8/16 I quit my job again. It was a really tough decision. Dr. G suggested that while he couldn't guarantee removing things from my plate would result in a live birth, he said it definitely wouldn't hurt. It could be one more check off the list of things tried. I thought about how much fun I was having at the regular school and while the work was a lot, it was mostly the result of increased volume. I'm a seasoned teacher, just not used to 110 students. I thought about the friends I was making and how cool everyone was and how I wanted to eventually VIP that mother up... haha maybe...probably not. But that's it...I realized at the regular school how many great teachers I was surrounded by and how I wanted to be as good as they were. I wasn't resting on any laurels (not even my VIP status at my former school) and wanted to rise to their level. I was challenged again. The feeling of accomplishing and establishing amazing stude...

Originally written 8/30/15 Today I posted the most boring blog post ever . Seriously read it. While it's true my mind is blanker than usual, it is also more full than usual. I cannot stop thinking about our second miscarriage. I've yet to go back to the doctor, but something has to be wrong, right? (I mean, duh...something has always been wrong). We are two for two with implantation resulting in pregnancy and then two for two the embryos doing an early peace out. Luckily (?) This one ended early just a week after we found out we were pregnant again. And luckily (?) This time I was not as excited (still excited) because I was more terrified that it would end. And then it did. And in the best way possible...during school! Middle school! It was like I was 14 all over again and caught at school unprepared for my first period. How perfect. And more perfect, on the day it happened and I was scared but trying to hold on to hope, I had lunch with my new lunch buddies at school ...

Originally written August 10,2015 As of today: Breakfast: Strawberry-mango smoothie Favorite song currently on my work out playlist: Chumbawamba's  Tubthumping lbs off my goal weight: 10, like always (I wrote "blissfully unaware" when I had to fill in the weight section on this morning's paperwork) Favorite color: still blue Anxiety about the first day of school on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the worst): 9.5 # of shots of progesterone in the butt this month: 6 (it's only been a week) Implantation tries: #2 today # Embryos used: #3 today You know those people you hear of who get hooked on drugs and spiral out of control? I think I know how it happens. When I went back this past June to the doctor to try again another implantation, I was given the unfortunate news that I would have to have surgery AGAIN! This would be my 4th time in the past year and a half to go under. I was thinking...no surprise. Of course this is happening. Then I thought, hm...

Originally Written 4/22/15 One of our friend's husband is an infertility doctor. She posted this picture yesterday: Pretty funny. Mostly because people going through infertility do not want you to be aware of anything. So infertility awareness week is recognizing that you should be aware of someone's silent struggle who you might or might not know and not make any insensitive comments about how you hate being pregnant or your accidental 5th pregnancy, or love on your baby too much, or talk about your chapped, cracked, and bleeding nipples. (That's really a TMI every week) And please don't post a fake pregnancy announcement as an April Fool's Joke. You will get crucified. The truth is that being infertile is hard. But so are a lot of things. Being pregnant and raising babies is hard. Being single and getting asked when you will settle down sounds miserable. As long as we are kind and supportive to everyone, we are all winning. Coping skills are a must and ...

Originally written 1/15/15 Healing your heart is a funny thing. One moment, you're going about your every day life and then something happens, usually something that ties you to something deeply nostalgic, and then you find yourself welling up and with a boulder in your throat. I took Alex to see Annie ...the new one. 1982 Annie was my favorite movie mostly because it's one of the only movies I ever watched as a child. I couldn't handle movies until I was a teenager (like 25) because of all the strong emotions they elicited in me. So if you ask me if I've ever seen, _______________, the answer is probably No. We bought the Annie soundtrack to supplement Jayonce's empire. One moment, we're singing along to Tomorrow , the next I have to stop, because I am having trouble seeing the road through my tears and feel like I'll cry. I remember when my Dad's mom died. It was about a month after and I asked him if he was okay one day while he was doing dis...

Originally Written 12/30/14 Sometime between getting out of school for the break and going to my 11 week appointment yesterday, my pregnancy ceased to exist. It's right in the time frame when things like that happen. Many people I know have had miscarriages. Many people have struggled worse than us to bring life into this world. I know it's [probably] nothing I did, and it's hard to explain how it affected (is affecting) me. My hope is not completely gone. Of course I am disappointed. I spoke earlier (maybe...who knows what order these will be posted) of having this wish to be pregnant. That's what it has seemed like, anyway...after trying for a year, pregnancy became this elusive wish that might or might not be granted. By year 5, it really, really seems unattainable...like a Ranger World Series win. And all that work we did...with the surgeries and the medicine and the injections...(bring on diabetes, I'm ready) and how it didn't pan out. That's dis...

Originally written 11/17/1 4 I love watching the podium ceremonies of the Olympics. No matter what country wins, my favorite part is watching the face of the gold medal winner as their country's anthem is played...as they tear up thinking about the years of hard work and road blocks and injuries they overcame to win...how all that pain, sacrifice, and pushing past days they wanted to quit all paid off in the end...and they think of all their loved ones, teammates and coaches who supported and cheered them on along the way...  truth. I can't say I've ever trained for the Olympics, but I've compared this whole infertility journey to a seemingly never ending race of hurdles. Some hurdles are bigger than others, but rest assured, as soon as you jump over one, there's another waiting for you in the distance and you can't control how fast you get there...or if you clear the hurdle. It is hard to see the end and it's terrifying to think that you migh...

Originally written 11/8/14 I've been really nervous in the days leading up to our scheduled implantation date. Conditions are not perfect like everyone wanted them to be, and I had to work on bringing to my consciousness the awareness that all this work we've been doing for years and the more intensive work that's been happening since June might result in nothing. As V corrected me, "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst"... I tend to hope for the best, but expect the worst. In my mind, that way I'm never disappointed, but of course, I am. The school week went. by. so. slowly. and. I. could. not. concentrate. on. anything. Perhaps because I was so serious this week, that was the reason why today's appointment was just ridiculous...or perhaps the drugs I was on... One time, my brother and I attended the funeral of a family member we didn't know. I was 11ish and he was 8? It's serious. Our family is sad. They're crying. But then th...

Originally written 9/28/14 (thematic music) I feel like this is over sharing, but I was told this morning during an ultrasound that my ovaries are now 4x bigger than their normal size. As I was looking up on the screen, they looked like film reels with circles the size of salad plates.  This is what a sea turtle waiting to lay eggs feels like. "Responding nicely to drugs" was written in my chart. 10 days = 25 shots in the lower abdomen. I am running out of room. Ha, not really. There is plenty of surface area on my belly these days! Too late to turn back now...  "Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots!"

Originally written June/July 2014 It turns out that my side of our fertility goals could easily be enhanced with a couple of simple surgeries. "It's just an easy laparoscopic surgery through your belly button..." he said. (still on our first meeting) Okay. Ignorance is not a great thing, generally speaking. But. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to what things will really be like in a medical sense...and really, really in an IVF journey sense... I was completely unprepared to be moving so fast on appointment number one. I had big plans for summer. We were going to swim and vacation and have fun, city [indoor] adventures. I was also going to take full advantage of my last summer of available childcare (me time, me time, me time, me time!). I guess fertility doctors assume that by the time you finally seek their care and guidance, you are ready to be pregnant, like, tomorrow. He sat down on day one, laid out the entire process from start to finish, identified the f...

Originally written July 2014 This was more of a blog post to myself...from myself... When you're visiting the IVF doctor for the first time, nothing reminds you more of why you're there than receiving a vag...well, "invasive" sonogram and watching doc (who you just met 45 minutes ago...) give you a virtual tour of your very empty, fibroid infested uterus and cyst covered ovary on a mounted TV screen.  Is that TMI? I thought so, too. I mean the first visit?!  How offending! They waste no time. (Not to mention, I thought it was all V that brought us to that office...even to the point where I was insulted that the doctors always assume it's a female's problem!) Whatever your belief in God, things happen (or don't) when they're supposed to for a reason. I believe we were supposed to adopt Alex first because chances of us wanting to go through all of that work would have probably diminished if we were busy raising other children. It took a lot of ...

It's been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was... Wait, sorry. Wrong post. It's National Infertility Awareness Week , 2017. I have spent over 2 years drafting about a dozen posts that started out as just for me. Well, actually V and me.  No Fifty Shades of anything...not even close. Don't worry. I guess if I had been courageous enough, I would have posted them as they happened because as you read them you must realize they were written in the present time they happened and the emotion is real for that point in time. That is how I deal with most things...I want to write them down. Always have. I still have my journal from high school/college. But I didn't post them. I needed to deal with that realm of my life and approach some kind of closure before sharing. It's hard to deal with something emotional, publicly (said the celebrities I read about in my trash maga...

April is Autism/Aspergers Syndrome awareness month . May is Mental Health  month. I'll address both of them now. In the summer of 2006 I went to visit my parents in Midland. My Dad was quickly deteriorating from his spring diagnoses of stage IV brain cancer. I arrived home and was shocked at how physically affected he had been in the short time since I'd seem him last. My sister, who has struggled with Aspergers and other mental health issues since childhood, was on a tear about going to the mall. Everyone was busy and she was insistent that someone drive her to the mall for the afternoon. There was no reasoning with her, no asking her to wait. She wanted to go right then and there and could not understand why no one would take her. After everyone telling her, repeatedly, to STFU and to figure it out, I watched my frail, sick Dad start to cry and beg her to please stop. She did not. It was too much. I lost it and punched her in the face. As hard as I could. Thankf...

When I went to the eye doctor to get a red, semi-painful eyeball checked out, I was told that I could not wear contacts again until the infection cleared up. That was over TWO weeks ago! Interesting science...when I put the antibiotic and steroid eye drops in, I could eventually taste them because they ran down my sinuses. Before I figured that out, I was convinced our water supply was poisoned (more than it probably already is). #science I hate wearing glasses. My nose is so flat, it can't balance the glasses on the bridge and instead of having a comfortable space, the lenses are smashed up against my eyes. I bought a pair of sunglasses for my birthday designed by a Korean ( Gentle Monster ) and they fit my nose like a glove. (?) At the time of my appointment, my glasses were so old, I failed the vision test in my right eye with my glasses on...couldn't even read the biggest line of letters. The doctor said it was going to be a long couple of weeks for me. V also n...